And it was passed along sharply partisan lines, offering nothing to Democrats, and leaving them with no obligation or incentive to negotiate cuts to Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, the entitlement programs that are driving up spending, but are also the pride of the Democratic Party.

For his part, Mr. Trump spent his campaign promising not to cut Medicare and Social Security. And Republicans will probably find, as they did when they failed to repeal the Affordable Care Act, that the public rises up to defend the programs they are trying to cut. Whatever political boost the Republicans could get for passing a tax cut could evaporate fast.

“Republicans are going to find that Democrats treat this tax bill the way Republicans treated Obamacare — it’s not trusted by people on the other side of the aisle,” said former Senator Judd Gregg, who was chairman of the Budget Committee and a member of the Simpson-Bowles commission, a bipartisan group of lawmakers and budget experts that produced a deficit reduction plan in 2010. “It will become a target, a rallying cry, which is unfortunate, because good tax reform, when done right, is not only good for the economy, it’s good for the parties.”

Many of the Republicans’ natural allies have criticized the bill for adding to the deficit and not dealing with the costs that were already driving up the government’s red ink. In an op-ed in The Washington Post, the leaders of that 2010 commission, former Senator Alan Simpson of Wyoming, a Republican, and Erskine Bowles, a Democrat who is a former White House chief of staff, accused the Republicans of “deficit denial,” saying the bill incorporated only “goodies” and virtually no “hard choices.”

“Republicans have been telling themselves for years that they wanted to get into power so they could balance the budget, reduce the debt, cut spending and fix entitlements,” Ms. MacGuineas said. “They’ve just made it harder, not easier.”

For weeks, Democrats and their allies have been accusing Republicans of a “two-step” deceit, warning that they would cut taxes now and then use the increase in the deficit they caused to demand entitlement cuts later.

“When you run up the deficit, your next argument will be, ‘Gee, you’ve got a large deficit,’” Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, a former Democratic presidential candidate, said in an interview.